For this month of April, I have selected and analyzed an e-mail fromAlan ! Thomas had also chosen to analyze an e-mail from Alan in November 2023... You'll see that in just a few months, Alan has completely changed the way he sends e-mails! Beyond these changes, what is Alan?
Discover Alan, your all-in-one health partner. No more juggling different solutions to improve your employees' well-being.
It's the mutual insurance plan that Badsender has chosen for its employees. And every time I use it, people are either pleasantly surprised (because they don't know Alan), or are full of praise for them! It's fair to say that Alan is not only well received by its users (as we've witnessed), but also by practitioners. Good for them 🙂
The pluses that caught my attention:
As with every analysis, I'll start with the points that caught my attention, by which I mean authentication (DMARC, BIMI), e-mail content and the use of domain names.
DMARC / BIMI authentication DMARC, which is configured on the sending domain (alan.com), is present and restrictive (to Quarantine). SPF and DKIM authentication are also in place, valid and aligned with the sender domain. BIMI is also present on the sender (and organizational) domain with a VMC-branded certificate, which was not the case on the last e-mail received from them in February 2024 (cf. e-mail concerning the Almerys and Viamedis security incident... Perhaps a trigger for setting up BIMI).
* DMARC (From domain): alan.com (p=quarantine)
* BIMI (From domain): alan.com (with VMC trademark certificate)
By the way, you can see the logo and the blue checkmark in my Infomaniak Inbox (for some time now, Infomaniak has been supporting BIMI and therefore displays all advertisers who have implemented BIMI with a VMC brand certificate)!
Content With this e-mail, Alan presented his sponsorship system and all its advantages! Easy to read, CTA in the form of a URL with a sub-domain of the sender (https://love.alan.com/lifadade), which leads to a pretty landing page dedicated to the sponsorship program - it's all there for the taking! The use of different emoticons is well thought-out and guides us through the e-mail.
The use of domain names According to the e-mails I receive from them and the e-mail Thomas analyzed last November, Alan mainly uses two domain names: "Alan.com" and "Alan.eu". Even if each has its own specificity, one might wonder about the relevance of having chosen two very distinct domain names rather than sub-domains from the same domain to manage two different types of mailings... At least, the 2 domains have the same BIMI registration (same logo and same VMC certificate), which reinforces the legitimacy of each domain.
The - that caught my attention :
As far as points for improvement in Alan's e-mail are concerned, I would highlight the following:
SPF authentication Alan's SPF record for the MailFrom domain (cioeu51258.alan.com) could be made more secure, since it is only used on one tool: Mailgun. Switching from the SoftFail qualifier (~all) to a Strict qualifier (-all) would make it possible to lock down the MailFrom domain as much as possible.
* Current SPF: v=spf1 include:mailgun.org ~all
* SPF optimized: v=spf1 include:mailgun.org -all
DKIM authentication If you're going to sign e-mails with DKIM, you might as well sign the domain used as the sender (here alan.com). In this way, we could have strict alignment with DMARC on DKIM and increased protection on e-mail flows and the sender domain!
* DMARC registration optimized with strict DKIM alignment: v=DMARC1; p=quarantine; rua=mailto:dmarc-aggregate@alan.eu,mailto:dmarc@alanhealth.uriports.com; ruf=mailto:dmarc-forensic@alan.eu,mailto:dmarc@alanhealth.uriports.com; fo=1; adkim=s;
Design I like looking at e-mails in Dark Mode, but a background color prevents full reading in Dark Mode. It's a shame I didn't think of this option for the sake of my little eyes (especially for a health organization :p).
The Preheader The "You're our best ambassador" tagline: Unfortunately, it's completely absent. Personally, I'd have moved the "You're our best ambassador" word group to the preheader (I'd even have made it bigger so that it's clearly visible when it opens). It's the perfect complement to the "Sébastien, do you love Alan?" object.
How do you feel about Alan's e-mail?
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Enjoy your reading!